For the next fortnight, the inquiry will hear evidence into what is colloquially referred to as the Heiner inquiry allegations.

Advertisement

Those allegations centre on the knowledge of sexual and physical abuse of adolescents at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre in 1988 and 1989.

Former magistrate Mr Heiner led the inquiry into the allegations in 1989 under the Cooper government and the then-incoming Goss government shredded the documents of evidence gathered during the inquiry in March 1990.

It emerged today that on January 18, 1990 centre manager Peter Coyne had questioned the "legislative basis" of the inquiry in a memo to Ms Matchett.

And on January 17, 1990, an Ipswich solicitor Ian Berry, representing Mr Coyne, also wrote to Ms Matchett insisting that his client have the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses called by Mr Heiner. Mr Berry is now the Member for Ipswich.

Immediately before lunch today, the inquiry discussed whether there was a variation in the terms of reference that Mr Heiner was to investigate.

Mr Copley said Mr Heiner's letter on January 19 gave an idea of how he conducted his inquiry set out in terms of reference he received on November 13, 1989.

‘‘He said that the letter and the annexure authorised him to investigate and to report to the minister and the director-general on certain matters not within the terms of reference,’’ Mr Copley said.

‘‘But he perceived his inquiry to encompass the first of these numbers; namely number one, which was the validity of the complaints received in writing from present and former staff and whether there was any basis to those claims.’’

Mr Copley put forward the argument that the intent of the inquiry was meant to be broader and included not only complaints about Mr Coyne.

‘‘But that Mr Heiner had proceeded on the basis that really paragraphs two to eight were really particulars of paragraph one, which concerned Mr Coyne,’’ he said.

The Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry has also heard allegations of poor management at the John Oxley Youth Centre in the late '80s during its first day of hearings in Brisbane.

Mr Copley, counsel assisting Commissioner Tim Carmody, stepped through a range of exhibits which led to the establishment of the Heiner Inquiry into the management of the centre.

Mr Copley told the inquiry that in December 1989, three weeks after Wayne Goss's Labor government was sworn in after the defeat of then-premier Russell Cooper's Coalition government, the centre's manager, Mr Coyne, complained that the inquiry had lost its way and that the records of interview should be destroyed.

One exhibit contains nine allegations from John Oxley Youth Centre youth workers and other staff made on October 10, 1989 to former Department of Families director-general Alan Pettigrew.